High viscosity heavy oil constitutes one of the major remaining oil resources in North America. Since the oil is too viscous to flow under reservoir conditions, steam injection and steam-flooding have provided a means to thin the oil with high temperature steam so as to allow production increases. When steam-flooding in a heavy oil reservoir, steam is injected into selected injection wells and the thin oil is produced from production wells.
The capability to produce the heavy oil in production wells is dependent upon the ability to keep the heavy oil at a high enough temperature so as to cause the oil to be thin enough to flow. Because of heterogeneities in the reservoir, fluctuations in surface temperatures, and compositions of fluids produced, production may slow sufficiently so as to allow a cool down and thickening of produced oil.
Therefore, what is needed is a method to keep heavy viscous oils sufficiently warm and thin so as to enable them to be produced to the surface in an easy manner.